Re:The First Room-Temperature Ambient-Pressure Superconductor
by PaulHoule on Wednesday July 26, 2023 @09:06AM
(#36877016)
They rapidly got up to liquid nitrogen temperatures so when I was in high school we would go to the welding supply shop, bring back liquid nitrogen to the lab, and do the Meissner effect demo
Liquid nitrogen is very easy to handle (ordinary thermos), liquid helium is much more expensive and harder. WHen I was in grad school the one required class was the Physics 510 lab and for that I did an experiment that involved second sound in superfluid helium and that involved cooling stuff down with liquid nitrogen first, then rolling up a huge dewar full of liquid helium, attaching a vacuum pump to get the temperature down to 2K, etc. For all that trouble you get to see
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRLvVkkq5GE
Liquid nitrogen is very easy to handle (ordinary thermos), liquid helium is much more expensive and harder. WHen I was in grad school the one required class was the Physics 510 lab and for that I did an experiment that involved second sound in superfluid helium and that involved cooling stuff down with liquid nitrogen first, then rolling up a huge dewar full of liquid helium, attaching a vacuum pump to get the temperature down to 2K, etc. For all that trouble you get to see
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UNpKCYZFfDU
That said, it was a long time before really good superconducting tape for fusion reactor magnets and stuff like that became available.